I had an interesting chat with my local Mazda service manager and then with a customer service advisor at Mazda Canada yesterday.
I guess I was misinformed by a Mazda service technician, he had told me that the condensation in the tail light housing on the RX8's was covered my a Mazda recall.
According to Mazda Canada that is incorrect, no recall for that particular problem was issued. It was ( and still is I believe ) an ongoing problem for some RX8 owners.
Mazda Canada advised me that a replacement lens is required and that would be covered under new car warranty ( 3 / 60k. ). Of course I would never win any argument with either my local dealership nor with Mazda Canada but here's my point.
Without question this is NOT a part that has failed or broken down within the warranty period. This is a factory defect, plain and simple and it has affected new RX8's as well as older ones. Stupid part about this is that Mazda Canada agreed with me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,it certainly is a factory defect that has been a problem for hundreds of 8 owners.
So any 8 owner who has no warranty left is responsible for the costs ( parts and labour ) to fix a problem that was defective from the start, and the cost is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination !!

 

yeah...we've all been there man...

Just spend the $18's on the redesigned seal and spent the 10 minutes to install it yourself. I haven't had the condensation come back since... though some other's have.

 

/\what he said.
use a dryer to air it out. If you don't get all the water out it will continue to condensate, if that happens (happened to me) just pull the reverse light bulb out for a day or so when you are driving and the brake lights/turn lights will dry it up. (happened to me when I rushed to get to dynoday, it's better than removing again and risking ruining the virgin seal).

 

Yeah we talked about this at the RX7 meet. Known problem, fairly simple fix (although 10 minutes? Only if you know what you are doing. XD )

Can anyone link to a part for this seal?

 

honestly.. even if you're doing it for the first time it should only take about 20 minutes max. It's just removing acouple of screws and pulling back the lining. There's instructions on how to do this in the DIY section of the forum.

As for the part number... just call up your local Mazda dealership.. they can find it pretty quick for you as it's a common thing. I'm know my local dealership keeps a few in inventory because of this...

 

The redesigned gasket does not solve the problem.

I took all the water out and sealed each bulb with clear silicone.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

 

I replaced the new seal and it fixed it for me. I only ordered the "gasket" from the service bulletin, the mazda dealership couldn't locate the "pad".

Here's the link to the service bulletin/instructions that have the part #: http://www.finishlineperformance.com...05-09-2055.pdf

 

just a thought...
i had a car that had the same problem... with the headlights...
my fix was to drill several small holes in the bottom of the clear lens
which solved the problem
i do realize that headlights heat the enclosure and thus maybe dry out faster...
has anyone tried this yet ?

 

i went to mazda and showed them and they replaced my tail light for free, no questions asked..... guess im lucky because they also replaced that bose tweeter up on the dash as it was blown, also free of charge

 

many have... the problem with that is that moisture can still get.. along with the spiders that seem to love our cars.